Coco and The Book of Life are separate animated films from different studios and directors, and neither is a sequel to the other. The quickest test is the hero’s name: Miguel is the boy in Coco (2017), and Manolo is the young man in The Book of Life (2014). Both draw on Mexico’s Day of the Dead and both were made with computer animation, but their stories, music and visual design go in different directions.
This guide sets out how to tell them apart, what each film is about without the endings, and the ratings and running times for named editions. It does not rank them.
The two films at a glance
- Coco (2017): a Pixar film directed by Lee Unkrich and co-directed by Adrian Molina. Its hero is Miguel, a 12-year-old who dreams of being a musician.
- The Book of Life (2014): directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez, with Guillermo del Toro among the producers. Reel FX lists it as a Reel FX Animation and Fox Animation film. Its hero is Manolo.
Producer and director are different jobs, so a famous producer’s name is not a directing credit. If a listing shows only a title, check the year, the director and the lead character’s name.
Why the two films get confused
Both are set largely in Mexico, both send a young man into a world of the dead full of skeleton characters, and both put music at the centre of the hero’s ambitions. People who saw one trailer often assume the other is the same film or part of the same series.
The common ground comes from a real tradition. UNESCO describes the Day of the Dead, as practised by Mexico’s indigenous communities, as taking place from the end of October to the beginning of November, when families lay flower petals, candles and offerings along the path from the cemetery to their homes. It was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List in 2008. Both films draw on this imagery in their own ways; neither invented it.
Two different stories (setup only)
Coco
Disney’s D23 entry describes Miguel’s family as having a baffling, generations-old ban on music, while Miguel idolises the famous musician Ernesto de la Cruz. After a mysterious chain of events he finds himself in the Land of the Dead, where he teams up with a trickster named Hector to uncover the real story behind his family’s history.
The Book of Life
The BBFC summarises the setup as a young man torn between becoming a matador, as his family wishes, and following his heart.
Both summaries stop at the setup, and this guide does not describe either ending.
A handmade look is not the same as stop-motion
“Looks handmade” and “was photographed as stop-motion” are different claims. Both films were made with computer animation, even though The Book of Life’s characters can look carved.
In an interview with Animation World Network, Gutierrez said his student short was based on Mexican folk art-inspired wooden dolls, and that he pitched the feature to Reel FX with wooden maquettes and paintings. He also described pushing every department to keep the original designs rather than smoothing them out.
The production itself was digital. Reel FX’s visual effects supervisor, Augusto Schillaci, told Computer Graphics World that the film was made in computer-generated 3D and in stereo 3D, with Reel FX’s Dallas studio doing the main work. The wooden-toy feel is a design choice rendered on computers.
Coco’s computer animation shows in its skeletons. Pixar’s production notes explain that the skeleton characters can detach their bones for gags, so each piece had to be independent, which made the character rigs unusually complex.
Music works differently in each film
Pixar describes Coco as combining traditional Mexican music, original songs written for the film and a score by Michael Giacchino. 20th Century Studios presents The Book of Life as reworking familiar pop songs inside its story. D23 notes that Coco won Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.
If a particular song is what you remember, check the film’s official soundtrack listing rather than a general “Day of the Dead songs” playlist, which can mix films and covers.
Ratings and running times, by edition
- US rating: both are PG on their studios’ official film pages.
- UK rating: the BBFC rated The Book of Life U for mild fantasy violence and brief scary scenes, and Coco PG for mild threat and violence.
- Studio page runtimes: The Book of Life 1 hour 35 minutes; Coco 1 hour 46 minutes.
- BBFC cinema timings: The Book of Life (3D, 2014) 95 minutes 20 seconds; Coco (UK cinema version) 104 minutes 57 seconds.
Keep each figure with its source. On the studio pages, a double bill comes to about 3 hours 21 minutes. On the BBFC cinema timings, it is about 3 hours 20 minutes, before breaks.
The BBFC’s notes help with sensitive viewers. For Coco, they list the death of loved ones as a theme and mention a brief fright among skeletons in a graveyard, with swift reassurance. For The Book of Life, they describe exaggerated, often comic bullfighting and say the skeleton characters in the underworld look friendly.
Which one should you watch first?
There is no continuity between the films, so there is no required order. Choose by what you want to compare:
- If you were looking for Miguel’s family-and-music story, start with Coco.
- If you were looking for Manolo’s folk-tale romance with a carved-toy look, start with The Book of Life.
- For younger or easily frightened children, read the BBFC notes first, since the UK ratings differ.
Watching both in one season makes a good comparison. Notice the music, the lead character’s conflict and how each film builds its world of the dead.
Quick answers
Are Coco and The Book of Life the same film?
No. Check the hero’s name and the director in the list above.
Is The Book of Life stop-motion?
No. It is computer-animated, with characters designed to look like handmade wooden figures.
Related reading
For another pair of animated films that are often grouped together, see Coraline vs. ParaNorman.